


they lose themselves eyes open

by Lirazel



Category: Infinite (Band), K-POP RPF, K-pop, Korean Pop, Kpop-Fandom
Genre: Gen, Pacific Rim AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many people are drift-compatible, but they all have to find each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they lose themselves eyes open

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to have seen the movie to understand this, I don't think. All you need to know is that giant monsters (kaiju) are coming out of the sea and attacking sea-side cities and that humanity is fighting back by creating giant machines that are driven by co-pilots connected through something called the drift wherein they basically mindmeld and share memories.

_I am no mystic. I know_   
_nothing rises that doesn’t_   
_know how to already._

\- “Visitation,” Carl Phillips

 

_i._

It never occurred to Myungsoo that he and Sungyeol wouldn’t be drift-compatible. After all, they’ve been inseparable since the day Sungyeol was brought to the orphanage and found silent, strange Myungsoo sitting in a far corner away from the chaos of the common room, flipping through his photographs and being ignored by all the other kids. Sungyeol told him later that Myungsoo seemed to carry quiet around him like the eye of a storm, and Sungyeol had just lost his parents and his little brother to the kaiju (and it had been terror and noise and chaos and screams and debris and roars and the whole world trembling and loudloudloudloudloud) and Myungsoo was the only one he could stand to be around for the first few months. As for Myungsoo, he’d taken one look at the gummy grin the new boy gave him and the way it contrasted with his sad, sad eyes and he never wanted to be beside anyone else ever again. He’s pretty sure if he hadn’t found Sungyeol, he’d never have spoken another word in his life. But Sungyeol wanted to hear his voice, and even if Myungsoo had been silent for three whole years at that point and was pretty sure he’d forgotten _how_ to speak (what was there to say?), there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Sungyeol.

Like enter the Jaeger program. The last thing Myungsoo wants is to strap into a metal suit and stare down kaiju, to rend and slam and kill. But all Sungyeol wants is to become a Jaeger pilot and avenge his family, and all Myungsoo wants is Sungyeol. 

(The thing is—Myungsoo and Sungyeol sometimes dreamed the same dreams even before they ever stepped into a Jaeger. Myungsoo knows because Sungyeol tells him his dreams at breakfast every morning. Myungsoo doesn’t tell his own, and he’s never told Sungyeol that they dream the same dreams, but somehow he thinks Sungyeol already knows.) 

He works as hard as he can mastering everything the program throws at him, harder than Sungyeol even, even though there’s nothing about it he really likes. When the trainers confirm they are indeed drift-compatible and start them on the more intense track, Myungsoo isn’t surprised at all. 

If Myungsoo could have any life at all, it would be him and Sungyeol in a little house somewhere far, far away from the sea. In the mountains somewhere, maybe. Somewhere with clean air and no crowds, a place where the light changes every few hours creating new canvases for photographs, somewhere Myungsoo can hang the pictures of his family for good. 

The loudness of the base, metal and the sharp smell of oil, people running everywhere and their sounds echoing through the largeness of the place—Myungsoo hates it even more than the overcrowded orphanage. 

But the first time he and Sungyeol drift together (the first time the walls between them disappear completely and he’s finallyfinallyfinally one with Sungyeol in all the ways he ever wanted to be), he knows it was all worth it.

 

_ii._

 

Sunggyu and Dongwoo find their third when they least expect it. They’ve been pouring through files, going to every combat practice to check out every trainee, and no one’s caught their eyes. They hadn’t been too thrilled at getting assigned the _Crimson Typhoon_ , not because she’s a bad Jaeger—she’s great—but because they didn’t feel like they _needed_ a third. But the two of them had the most experience, were the most dependable of all the pilots, and when the _Typhoon_ arrived on base, the Marshal told them that they’d be bumped from the _Danger_ and assigned to the three-pilot Jaeger instead.

It’s been discouraging, trying to find someone. Sunggyu and Dongwoo work so well together, so absolutely effortlessly from day one, the trust as simple and absolute as a hand-clasp. It isn’t that they can’t find anyone else drift-compatible—there are several options. It’s that they can’t find anyone else they want to invite into their bond. The Marshal tells them to get over it, yells that this is war, not a matchmaking convention, and you don’t get to pick your comrades in battle, you do what needs to be done to save lives. Dongwoo’s head droops, Sunggyu answers smartly and respectfully, and that night back in their room they tangle their feet together and decide that the only thing to do is to suck it up and just pick.

But the next day they get pulled into a basketball game with a group of mechanics in the corner of the hanger, three-on-three, the two of them paired with a guy with a wide grin and a streak of grease across the side of his very pointy nose. He’s a good player, but Sunggyu and Dongwoo aren’t, and Sunggyu braces himself for annoyance at their lack of skills. But the guy is all laughter, encouragement and friendly tips, and once they actually get into the rhythm of play, something strange happens.

Sunggyu barely notices it at first, the way it creeps into being, something big and ocean-swelled with potential they’re barely catching a glimpse of, but when they take a water break, Dongwoo pulls him aside, wide-eyed and with hands quivering as they grasp Sunggyu’s, and Sunggyu’s heart hitches. They don’t have to talk about it as they press their foreheads together, they both know it’s true. They could feel it in the way the mechanic moved in relation to them, always positioning himself exactly where one of them needed him to be, their awareness of his every shift, the way his talent made them both better at the game, pulling them up to his level. 

It’s going to take some real convincing to bring the Marshal around, and they’ll have to wait till the mechanic can be rushed through basic training. But that doesn’t matter.

Sunggyu holds Dongwoo’s hand and the two of them watch the grinning mechanic pour a bottle of water over his own head, shaking the droplets from his hair, free and easy. He has no idea, probably hadn’t even felt it, but the two of them had, and they know. 

They’ve found their third.

 

_iii._

Howon doesn’t think this is going to work. Lee Sungjong has one of the highest IQs in the program, a coolness under pressure that Howon himself envies (and he’s no hot-head himself when it counts), and despite his deceptively delicate appearance, he’s an excellent fighter, quick and sharp and above all strategic. Howon admires him, respects him, has no doubts that Sungjong is going to be a fantastic Jaeger pilot.

He just doesn’t know why he has to be _Howon’s_ co-pilot.

The Marshal is always annoyed with Howon. “You’re one of the best fucking trainees in the whole fucking program! You’re a commander’s dream! So why the fuck are you being a pissy baby? Just pick someone, damn it, or I’ll pick someone _for_ you.”

But picking someone isn’t as easy as it sounds. Howon doesn’t understand the roots of his own reluctance to pick a partner; he knows he wants to do this. Busan is his home, and it’s on the coast and he’s known since he was a child that sooner or later a kaiju would destroy it if there wasn’t a Jaeger team to fight it off. He’s committed to protecting it, that’s why he joined the program in the first place. He’s been fine with the exhausting physical training, the mind-numbing mental preparations, the endless classes on strategy and acceptable risk-taking, even the lectures on kaiju behavior given by jumpy or droning scientists. He deals with the bad food, the lack of sleep and privacy, the pressure and expectations, the distance from his family and friends. None of it fazes him.

But letting someone in his head? That keeps tripping him up. 

He’s turned down his seventh or eighth co-pilot invitation the day that Lee Sungjong marches up to him in a corridor and keeps on marching until he’s got Howon backed up against the wall, a long, elegant finger digging into Howon’s chest. Howon isn’t one to back down, not from anyone or anything, not even from a kaiju, but there’s something about the fierceness of Sungjong’s eyes that’s unlike anything Howon’s ever faced before. 

Sungjong runs his eyes from the top of Howon’s head down to his toes and sniffs. It’s a dismissive sound, and something like anger flares in the pit of Howon’s stomach. 

Sungjong’s voice, as always, is surprisingly pretty, but there’s a steeliness to it that doesn’t surprise Howon at all.

“You’re my co-pilot. Be ready for our first training run tomorrow at 700 hours.”

Howon is damn sure he’s not going to get pushed around by anyone, and he has absolutely no intention of showing up for the run, but somehow at 6:57 the next day he finds himself walking into the hanger and up the clanging stairs to climb into the _Cherno Alpha_. Sungjong sniffs again when he sees Howon, then goes back to pulling on his suit without another word.

Howon’s been inside a Jaeger before, of course, been in the suit, snapped his feet into place. He’s been through countless simulations as well, so many that he sees kaiju and feels the slamming waves of the sea in his dreams. Getting all strapped in and ready to go is nothing new.

But then there’s the drift.

Afterwards, Sungjong crooks a smile at him, his mouth set in a line that absurdly reminds Howon of a catfish. It’s not the cool, superior smile he offers people he respects, nor is it the laughing grin that he lets loose when Sungyeol or Myungsoo say something funny. This is something else altogether, and if Howon weren’t already feeling that he’s been taken apart and put back together again, he thinks it would make his knees weak.

“Co-pilots?” Sungjong says, and his face is now as familiar to Howon as his own. Sungjong has a little brother and Sungjong likes to do girl group dances and Sungjong likes to be told he’s pretty but Sungjong hates being called a girl and Sungjong thinks cilantro tastes like soap and Sungjong broke his wrist when he was nine and Sungjong prays and reads his Bible every night before he goes to bed and Sungjong wants to be a Jaeger pilot because he’s infuriated that anyone or anything thinks they can destroy _his_ world and Sungjong is perfect. 

“Co-pilots,” Howon confirms and something about the way Sungjong quirks an eyebrow at him makes him think that maybe Sungjong thinks Howon is perfect too.


End file.
